The Everything Learning Spanish Book: Speak, Write, and Understand Basic Spanish in No Time (Everything Series)

The Everything series is well done and presents the information in a very accessible format.


Don't waste your time or money   November 13, 2006
Scott (Washingtion State.)
18 out of 27 found this review helpful

The other review was obviously written by someone related to the book. When you buy a Spanish learning book one of the most important things to look for is pronunciation. Well this book has very little of that, and when it does half the time it gives some pronunciation you cant even pronounce. Examples: "desperdiciar.....dehs-pehr-SYAHR." "naranja.....nah-RAHN-hhah". How the hell are you suppose to pronounce something with a double hh. This is a few but there are many more examples that are troubling. 1/4 of the book has pronunciations scattered throughout the book. The rest of it you have to guess how to pronounce the words. I have read 3/4 of this book and it has not been helpful at all in learning Spanish.


Excellent for beginners   January 9, 2007
S. Thrash
5 out of 5 found this review helpful

I have been looking for a book to help get me over that little hump in learning spanish, and I finally found it. My wife speaks fluently, and has been doing her best to help me learn, but this has bridged the gap between repeating and actually learning. I highly recommend it for anyone looking to either build a base for spanish, or like me, to help get over the hump of just knowing basic phrases.


From a teacher's perspective, not bad!   February 19, 2008
Senora Gose (Bryan, Texas)
5 out of 5 found this review helpful

If you are a beginner, this book is a bit overwhelming. If you are intermediate, it's a little insulting - it begins with telling you how to study, and when to study, and how not to study, but to be sure you're enjoying yourself. This is all good advice, but I think most people know all this before purchasing the book.

Pros - the books includes SOME phonetic spelling, and is nicely laid out as far as which chapters come first, then next, etc. Another huge pro, is there is a TON of info, and I didn't see any errors in the several times I have perused the book, or read passages for students asking for help.

Cons - the page layout has a LOT of words on each page. The basic idea behind learning a language is that a language is made up of words. This book presents many phrases, which for a beginner, is too much to memorize or make sense out of. For an intermediate learner, they know to break phrases down, but the grammar that goes with the phrase is not immediately available (though it is covered in the book, how does a learner know where to look?)

So... this book is PERFECT for a reviewing student. Maybe you studied in high school and need to brush up for a placement exam. Perhaps you remember some from college but need a crash course before your trip to Mexico, I would highly recommend this book - you know enough to work your way through this book effectively. For all other learners, there are better books out there Spanish Now! Level 1 with CDs (Spanish Now) which comes with CD's, or other readers, etc, that are less overwhelming.

If it had a CD, I think the effect might be a lot better, but as is, it's just TOO much for a beginner. Start with something else first, then perhaps graduate to this. It IS a good reference as well.
Sra. Gose
Spanish Teacher, and Author of Flip Flop Spanish: Ages 3-5: Level 1 & Flip Flop Spanish: Ages 3-5: Level 2


Muy Bien!   February 4, 2007
Don Suttajit (Houston, Tx USA)
4 out of 5 found this review helpful

I have sat around at Barnes & Noble flipping through all sorts of spanish books and finally came across this one. It's DEFINATELY the EASIEST to read. The chapters are broken up really well towards everday situations. Compared to other books this one has plentiful of variety of vocabs to learn (also has pronunciation for it to help you say the words correctly). So I'm really confident with this one!